The person who called me a “Godse disciple” is supposedly a Kashmiri.

I do not believe that Sherry Rehman would justify targeting civilians–something that is clearly against all International Laws. You will have to back up that claim. There are many Pakistanis (like me) who believe that our support of the Kashmir cause should be restricted to diplomatic and non-violent means.

There was no mob destruction of Hagia Sophia prior to converting it into a mosque. Turkish courts have followed a proper process and anulled what they have decided was Ataturk’s illegal decision. The mob destruction of Babri was a crime and (as far as I know) there is still a case in Indian courts against the perpetrators–despite the fact that their action has been justified subsequently.

I believe tourists will still be able to visit Hagia Sophia and nothing will change in the building’s architecture. The only difference is that people will be allowed to offer namaz there (this is at least what the reporting suggests).

Finally, there is a very good comparison between Modi and Erdogan. Just as Modi wants to undo everything that Pandit Nehru did, Erdogan wants to undo everything that Ataturk did. However, Pandit Nehru was a far far greater man than Hindu Hriday Samrat and Ataturk was a much greater man than Erdogan.

My email is earthquake344@gmail.com, have already posted it on BP before, don’t need to worry about privacy since this isn’t even a tertiary email let alone secondary or primary.

**very abusive/strong language ahead**

“when you stay with the same people for four years they become your friends and that resentment goes away.”

This reminds me of a conversation I had heard near a college canteen between three friends about 10 years ago. Very lewd, offensive (to sensitive people) but at the same time displaying how friendship is already stronger than caste/religion in India and with time things will only get better. I have not seen resentment against anyone after 4 years of living together in college.

Real conversation between three guys X (dalit), Y (muslim) and Z (brahmin).

X to Y: Yo Love-Jihadi! heard you got dumped. Sad to hear this man. Must have been your circumcised d*** that scared her or did you tell her about your plan to make 8 babies with her. Or did she whisper ‘mandir wahin banayenge’ in your ear?

Y to X: Gutter-snipe! at-least my family wouldn’t get paraded naked infront of the village (for dating other caste) like you people. And what is it btw that you are celebrating? You wouldn’t get to enter the temple anyways you manual-scavenger.

X to Z: (patting Z’s back) look our Jihadi just got angry.What would you do X? bomb our place in anger shouting Allahu-Akbar!

Z to X: Fuckface! I let you sit on a table in-front of me instead of the floor, now you dare touch me you filthy janitor.

X to Z: (pretending to smear Z’s face and neck while Z pretends to feel disgusted) Yes I was cleaning your washroom but your aunt walked in naked acting all innocent. I fu**** her and when I will get a job before you (with job reservation) I will maybe marry your sister and call you my “sala” (mildly derogatory word for brother in law) and bless your bloodline with hair (Z was balding).

Y to Z: Panditji! even I am a part-time Ved Vyas. I can bestow (head full of) hair to your sister(‘s child) too. You just need to pray to me standing on one leg for 12 days chanting “Om Namah Muhammaday”.

Z to Y: First figure out your ancestry you illegitimate product of invading rap****.

All three laugh their asses off continuing their jokes while walking back to their hall of residence, Y’s hands over Z’s shoulder.

College friends are a gift of god. It is impossible to recreate that kind of magic again. I don’t know what it is like in the US colleges, people are fragile/reserved here so I am guessing we have it better in India.

@justanotherlurker

Do you have an email (with no personal identifying info) you could share with me?

Thanks

@DaThang

I’m not going to post much here but if you have a way to share your email with me privately, let me know. I do have some thoughts + data on Jatt/Jaat haplogroups I’d like to share with you.

Yes , it is massive shift in Turkey, with the Secular regime of Ataturk is dismantled by Erdogan step by step.

On the one hand it is true, Turkey as a sovereign state has the right to change laws, annul old laws, etc. It is also true that lot of Turkish Muslims were demanding that it be made back into a mosque

On the other hand, Hagia Sophia used to be the Prime Church for Orthodox Christians for nearly 1000 years, and it was converted into a mosque after great surge of violence by Ottomons, conquest, killing, etc. So, basically the Orthodox Christian world i.e Balkans, Greece, Russia , etc were somewhat satisfied that the result of Hagia Sophia made into museum as it annulled the result of violence on the Christian world , robbing them of their greatest church and spiritual centre. Basically Russia, Greece , Serbia and others had no friction with Turkey all these years .

Now this act by Erdogon govt will slowly loosen the screws back and bring back some historical animosities.

This brings into question the comparison between Edrogon’s decision on HG and the pulling down of the mosque in Ayodhya in favour of a temple for Srirama. Babri Mosque was hardly known in the muslim world . There are hundreds of mosques in the Muslim world of much greater historical and spiritual significance. Yet, the leftist and ‘secular’ forces in India were crying hoarse as if that was the end of civilization and secularism in India and the rise of Nazism and fascism. It would be interesting to watch the reaction of Knights of Secularism in the Indian subcontinent to Erdogan’s decision to convert a secular building into a mosque.

1. There are certain groups that are more into ritual purity and ‘merit’ than others. I’d put Tamil Brahmins at the top on average. One of my friend’s advisor was a renowned CS professor but he never went for any conferences since he can’t cross the seas. Not joking.

This was good for my friend since he would travel instead.
He’s a Tam Brahm as well but quite liberal.

It should be kept in mind, though, that the discrimination in most cases is not actually based on one’s caste but on the category (SC, OBC, general) one chose to take the exam in. So if you are a Dalit but took the exam in the general category, you are most likely not going to face discrimination.

2. The people involved in the CISCO incident went to IIT some 20 years ago. This should be significant.
Back then the total reservation was 28% (21% for SCs and 7% for STs).
The seats were also often not completely filled so the eventual total number of reserved category folks would be still less. They were usually sidelined and didn’t play much of a role in the culture.
JEE ranks were also more important back then so being ‘general’ category mattered.

That changed post-2008 when OBC reservations were added and the total number of reserved seats rose to 49% by 2010. The profile of IITs and awareness about them also rose in this time. Fewer seats went vacant.

So recent batches have almost half the batch with reserved students. This has changed the culture and students have more ’empathy’ after a fashion.

OBCs, on average, fall somewhere between general and SC in academic performance so that has also smoothed the previously extremely bi-modal distribution.

This is not to say there is no latent sense of resentment among general category students but when you stay with the same people for four years they become your friends and that resentment goes away.

Social justice has also become much more important of a part of daily conversation.

(Things are different in private universities where there is no reservation. I’d say these people are much more clueless on average than folks who’ve studied in public universities. I’ve heard extremely ignorant stuff being said by my friends from BITS, VIT etc.)

3. Old-school profs can still be very disparaging in person. I know some who are family friends and say stuff that can get them in deep trouble if made in public. Again, it’s not because of caste but category, which overlap in ~90% of cases.

They are not *casteist* people per se.

4. Out of the students who drop out, a significant number are SC. This is a pretty uncomfortable situation since you want IITs to be autonomous but if you give them autonomy then it will result in a scenario that’s indistinguishable from caste discrimination.

The main reason as discussed above with Bhimrao is lack of good schooling. As a result, these folks struggle, especially because the medium of instruction is English.

There are English classes for those who want to take it in the first year but it is difficult to catch up with about 60-70% of the batch who have studied in English all their lives.

Relative grading, which is used by a lot of instructors, doesn’t help.

5. The only solution I see is improving the quality of schooling in the country, which we have continuously failed to do since independence.

Tinkering at the university level is just political image management. It’s like treating the symptom. It might even be counter-productive in the long term.

6. There are other kinds of subtle exclusionary factors that are unrelated to caste but also play a role.
A large chunk of profs are Bengali or Tamil and they usually carry some prejudice against north Indians.

This affects most Hindi speakers but is significantly worse for, say, a Meena from a small town like Bharatpur in Rajasthan to find meaningful research work.

India is complex.

The (L)ord is magnanimous so He will forgive you for making jokes about His children.

i’m hearing this case is a real instance, but the idea this stuff is pervasive in the states is wrong (which seems right to me, but i don’t know much)